Rileggendo un caso di studio nella città diffusa veneta: dimensione spaziale e dimensione sociale nelle percezioni del paesaggio

The relationship between landscape and perceiver represents a central issue in landscape research. Its significance is demonstrated by theoretical reflections and empirical studies within the field of Geography and other disciplines, as well as by the remarks of the European Landscape Convention (2000) that additionally brought this question into play. Adopting Turri’s interpretation of landscape, in this study we consider landscape as an intermediary between a local community and its territory, as an “interface between doing and seeing what we are doing” (Turri, 1998, p.16). Turri, by suggesting the metaphor of landscape as a theater, interconnects, while distinguishing, two dimensions of the humanlandscape relationship: “humans as spectators” and “humans as actors” (ibid.). Therefore, we hypothesize that the way “humans as spectators” assign value to the landscape –through a process of perception in which filters and reference model act– profoundly influences their choices and behaviors, participating in landscape transformations and therefore assuming the role of “humans as actors”. If the relationship between individuals and landscape has been deeply explored in literature, the “collective” landscape perceptions of a community appear to be far less investigated. The role of the social interactions and shared experiences in establishing connections between the landscape and the community’s identity seems quite neglected, especially regarding the “everyday landscapes” remarked by the ELC. Aiming at exploring the link between the way people collectively assign value to the landscape and their shared behaviors that determine landscape transformations, this paper presents the results of two studies carried out during two different time periods. A first exploratory study, conducted over 2003 and 2005, in the Venetian central plain characterized by the phenomenon of urban sprawl (Castiglioni and Ferrario, 2007; Castiglioni and Ferrario, 2008), detected a gap between the inhabitants’ general idea of landscape” and their actual relationship with their “place of life”. The inhabitants of this area did not identify the even existence of landscape in their everyday life place, however, at the same time, they did not reveal any disorientation or discomfort, manifesting a strong attachment to their place of living. In our interpretation, the inhabitants appear to have scarce awareness about the consequences of their role as “actors” who transform the landscape. Their role of “spectators”, instead, seems to be interpreted inattentively and often in a contradictory way. These observations have raised additional questions: how do people assign values and meanings to their place of life? Is there any reference to their local practices in attributing values and meanings? How could we investigate the processes of value attribution related to the local scale? How the process of value attribution affects people’s behavior? Can the landscape be a pertinent concept when referring to everyday life places, raising awareness and improving the relationship between people and their surrounding environments? Furthermore, considering some of the remarks of the ELC, one may question: in what terms does the landscape represent an “important element of people’s quality life” and a “key element of individual and social well-being” in the context of ordinary places? To what extent do the inhabitants of the “città diffusa” aspire to “enjoy high quality landscapes” and “play an active part” in their transformation? On the basis of these questions, a second survey has been carried out after ten years from the first one (through semi-structured interviews) in one of our previous case studies: Vigorovea a small settlement located at 15 Km south from Padova. Concerning people’s processes of value attribution to everyday landscapes, this second survey showed that the inhabitants of this settlement make reference to two dimensions: a spatial dimension, according to which people assign value to landscapes considering visual characteristics (forms and aesthetic quality), and a social dimension, according to which people assign value to landscapes considering their own experiences and collective practices occurring in the everyday life places. On the basis of these two dimensions, one can assume that in attributing value to the landscape people may act as “spatial spectators” (when considering the visual characteristics of the landscape) and/or as “social spectators” (when considering the activities and practices occurring in the landscape). Moreover, concerning the role of inhabitants as actors, we can observe that the degree of people’s involvement in taking care and/or transforming the landscape is highly important. In the case of Vigorovea, three typologies of spaces associated with different behaviors can be distinguished: private places, public places and places “of collective use”. The latter are not exactly “public” places, but they can be used by the community in a more or less regulated way accommodating several collective activities. In private places people manifest a high degree of involvement: as spectators, they assign value to the landscape by referring to both social and spatial dimensions, consequently, as actors, they pay attention to the aesthetic quality of places rendering them appropriate for their private activities. In general, people manifest a very low degree of involvement towards public places: as spectators, they assign value to places only referring to the social dimension, while as actors, they appear quite unconcerned about the landscape stewardship, since its maintenance is thought to be a duty of the public administration principally. In addition, people manifest a moderate degree of involvement towards places of collective use: as spectators, they assign value to the landscape mainly by referring to its social dimension; as actors, they take care of these places motivated by the existence of the accommodated social practices and activities. Taking into account these observations, it is possible to highlight an experiential dimension of the landscape that does not merely make reference to the personal experience of individuals or their socio-cultural context, but rather to the sharing of places used for the community’s collective activities. Such places, providing people with the opportunity to “act collectively”, acquire a central role in the evolution process of the community identity; furthermore, the social practices appear to be the base on which local models of value attribution become constructed. In conclusion, these results highlight the need for raising people’s landscape awareness, assisting them to observe more “carefully” their surroundings besides their social practices and to participate in transformations as active and responsible citizens. Lastly, in our view, any significant policy, as well as any simple intervention to ordinary landscapes should take into account their “social” meaning in order to effectively improve both the landscape quality and people’s quality of life.